The baby flushed down a toilet in China is collected from hospital by his grandparents after his horrific ordeal finally comes to a close

The newborn baby rescued from a sewage pipe in China has been taken from the hospital by police and its maternal grandparents, officials said today.

The infant has been returned to his family after authorities decided he became trapped because of an accident.

The unnamed mother claimed she fell pregnant following a one night stand – and then the father of the baby boy abandoned her.

The 22-year-old woman said she could not afford an abortion or cope with the stigma of being a single mother.

Now, the man has requested a paternity test and – if the baby is his – is ready to discuss with the woman how to support the child, according to an official in the Pujiang county propaganda office.

The footage shows Baby 59 in his incubator at Pujiang Hospital ahead of him being returned to his family

Being nursed back to health: The abandoned baby boy is pictured being fed in hospital after firefighters rescued him from a sewage pipe after he was apparently flushed down a toilet in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province.

Police concluded that the 22-year-old single woman faces no charges, deciding she did not initially step forward because she was frightened, and that she gradually had a change of heart and began to tell the truth, said the official.

Last night, his maternal grandparents and police arrived at Pujiang Hospital to take the baby to a rural location, office director Chen Pandong said.

‘The police department and the family member came together. This (was) definitely (done) in accordance with our rules for leaving the hospital,’ added Chen.

Chinese media said she went to the shared bathroom in a residential complex when she felt abdominal cramps last Saturday and gave birth.

But she said the baby slipped into the sewer pipe and she was unable to free him.

She also claimed she was the first to raise the initial alarm and the watched the entire two-hour rescue in secret.

The 6lb 2.8oz baby boy was found abandoned in a sewage pipe in a building in the eastern city of Jinhua on Saturday afternoon, after residents reported hearing sounds of crying.

Firefighters had to remove the pipe and take it to a nearby hospital, where doctors carefully cut around it to rescue the baby inside.

Outside the apartment block, a man who saw the rescue, Xu Qiangding showed reporters a photo he took when the baby was found.

‘When the rescuers came out, they cut the pipe open, and they took out the placenta which was still bleeding.

‘We saw them pulling this out and thought it was an awful sight. It was clear what the thing inside the pipe was. The doctor said he was taken to the hospital for treatment.

The hospital’s office director Chen Pandong confirmed that the baby had been taken to a rural location.

‘When the baby was touched, his heart was still beating. And he was saved and taken to the hospital,’ he said.

An investigating police officer told the Daily Mail: ‘The girl told the landlord she had heard a ‘kitten-like’ sound in the fourth-floor squat toilet. The landlord later called the police and fire fighters for help.’

Police are still investigating if her version of the harrowing events were true or if the infant boy was dumped intentionally into the four inch sewer pipe.

The woman, a restaurant worker, reportedly confessed to being the mother after officers found blood-stained tissues and toys in her room and asked her to undergo a medical check.

‘The woman said she felt too embarrassed to call the police herself as a single mother and feeling under societal pressure. Girls like her can are easy targets for public criticism,’ the police officer added.

The woman said she had sex with a man and didn’t realize she was pregnant until early January.

She was too scared to tell her parents so hid her pregnancy by wearing loose clothes and wrapping cloth tightly around her abdomen.

The man she claims is the father has denied it is his baby, according to media reports.

Video of the two-hour rescue of ‘Baby No 59’ – so named because of his incubator number in the hospital – have been shown worldwide, prompting both horror and an outpouring of charity on behalf of the newborn.

The mother is now receiving care at the same hospital as her son.

‘The mother is sick with a high fever. Her parents are now with her at the hospital. Who will care for the baby has yet to be decided,’ said the police officer.

Fire fighters were called to the residential building to rescue the baby, which was trapped in the L-joint of a sewage pipe attached to a squat toilet.

Officials were shown removing the pipe from a ceiling using pliers and saws to gently pull the pipe apart.

Fearing they may harm the boy, they took him to hospital still trapped in the pipe, and doctors then carefully cut him free.

The baby had a low heart rate and some minor abrasions on his head and limbs, but was mostly unhurt, according to local reports. The placenta was still attached.

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese people took to social networking site Weibo to vent their fury at the mother.

News of the rescue locals to go to the hospital armed with nappies, baby clothes, powdered milk and even offers to adopt the child.

Nurse Zhang Songhe told the Daily Mail that the mother of the baby was with him in hospital. ‘I don’t know the reason she abandoned the baby.

‘We’re going to take care of the baby. We are not sure when the baby can be discharged.’

She added: ‘When the baby arrived here, he was in critical condition.

‘We suspect he has a fracture in the top right section of his skull. But now everything has been stabilized.’

Residents living in a residential building in Jinhua in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang reported the sound of a baby crying in the public restroom on Saturday.

The landlord of the building in Pujiang county told Zhejiang News that it was unlikely the birth took place in the restroom because there was no evidence of blood and she was not aware of any recent pregnancies among her tenants.

The baby was stuck in an L-shaped portion of the sewage pipe with a diameter of about 3 inches.

The video shows rescuers sawing off a section of the pipe along a ceiling that apparently was just below the restroom.

His eyes, face and body were covered in the filth of the pipe.

There are frequent reports in Chinese media of babies being abandoned often shortly after birth, a problem attributed variously to young mothers unaware they were pregnant, the birth of an unwanted girl in a society which puts greater value on boys or China’s strict family planning rules.

The case has raised discussion of China’s lack of proper education about sex and birthing in many schools.

Firefighters and doctors rescue an abandoned newborn baby boy by cutting away a sewage pipe piece by piece, in this still image taken from video, in Jinhua city, Zhejiang province May 25, 2013